I had some technical difficulties with the blog last week, so this posting is a little delayed. Also, before you get into it, I’d like to talk about more insect problems. The dry conditions are continuing to create headaches. I’ve had about 5 more calls about chinch bugs, rice levee bill bugs in rice. Some are reporting successful control with a spray of pyrethroid to control the insects. I would caution you to avoid using an insecticide unless you can confirm the presence of the insect causing injury. There are some mystery problems out there and it is easy to blame insects in some cases.

The bottom line is that if you can’t find any insects causing injury, then there is no point paying for an insecticide application.I know it is hard to scout in the wind and the dry conditions. Scouting early in the morning will increase your chances of finding chinch bugs in rice. Also, scouting the vegetation of the edges of the field – particularly sweeping grasses with a sweep net – is another good scouting method for chinch bugs. Tomorrow we will be in Vermilion Parish for a morning meeting and a walk with Dr. Saichuk at the verification field. In the afternoon, we will head to Jefferson-Davis Parish to scout some of these fields that are/have suffered injury from chinch bugs, rice levee bill bugs, and/or colaspis.

St. Landry Parish Vince Deshotel and Anna taking plant heights.

St. Landry Parish rice water weevil demonstration site field map.

After we found colaspis in Jefferson-Davis Parish last week, we headed over to St. Landry to take stand data at Charlie Fontenot’s farm. We met with Valent company representatives Karen Arthur, John Bordlee and Bill Odle to discuss this location and the other sites. Charlie Fontenot, Crop Consultant Dean Reed and County Agent Vince Deshotel also met us at the field. We did not notice any obvious visual differences between treatments, but all treatments looked a little better than the untreated. We will report the overall stand observations once we have take data at all sites.

All plots are marked with colored flagging, so feel free to contact County Agent Vince Deshotel if you’d like to drive by and visit the test site.

Bill Odle, Dean Reed, John Bordlee and Charlie Fontenot examining the stand at the St. Landry Parish demo location.

Plants grown from NipsitInside to the left and Dermacor X-100 to the right.

Plants grown from untreated rice seed to the left and CruiserMaxx treated plants to the right.

We intend to plant our last site – located in Avoyelles Parish – on Wednesday. We will take stand data at the Calcasieu site on Thursday. Busy week of field work ahead!

We have finally concluded all of the core sampling for our demonstration test this production season. We have gathered all the data and Anna conducted a statistical analysis. In this analysis each location is treated as a replicate.

Our demonstration test was conducted in all the Louisiana parishes highlighted in purple.

We had a total of 15 sites included in our test this year. We started this season with 5 locations designed to evaluate rww management tactics. An additional 5 sites were set up to evaluate colaspis management. We did not have any colaspis infestations in the test sites. We gained three more weevil test sites that had been planted out either by seed companies or a cooperator, who requested we take samples. We wound up with a total of 10 locations that were included in the overall data analysis.More than 500 core samples were processed to generate this dataset – that’s a lot of backbreaking work to pull all the cores and then to wash all that mud from the roots! Thanks to our cheerful, hardworking crew for completing this task without complaint.

We collected weevil cores from all sites 4 weeks post flood. Our standard method is to take 10 cores per treatment, in a zig-zag pattern across the field, making sure to pull cores from the edge and middle of the cut.

A few trends broke out in the dataset. In Acadia and Jeff Davis Parishes, we had a relatively light infestation with weevils, except at one location (Lawson Farm) where we had about 10 larvae per core in the untreated check. In Vermilion Parish we had low to moderate infestations. In Concordia Parish we had an average of 10 larvae per core in the untreated check. In Evangeline Parish we had a relatively severe infestation with untreated counts averaging from 10.8 rww larvae per core at the LaHaye farm to 15 larvae per core at the Morein farm site. Our highest population was in St. Landry Parish where we had an average of 21.9 larvae per core in the untreated check. While, in Tensas Parish (our most northern location) we had an extremely light infestation with zero larvae per core in the untreated check and the highest count of 0.15 larvae per core in the Dermacor X-100 treated cut. Interestingly at this location, we had a fairly severe infestation in the 2008 production season. The graph that follows summarizes the average number of rww larvae per core when we analyzed the entire dataset.

Average number of rice water weevil larvae per core (calculated from 10 cores per field or cut). Different letters indicate a significant difference in the treatment effectiveness.

Overall, Dermacor X-100 provided the best level of weevil control, followed by pyrethroid (either Karate pre,Karate pre + mustangMax on fertilizer post, or Karate post) and CruiserMaxx. Dermacor X-100 provided significantly better control than the other two treatments. There was no signficant difference in the core sample average between the pyrethroid and the CruiserMaxx seed treatment.

Unfortunately, the results from the Hybrid test plots (25 pound or less seeding rate) did not provide any more clarity about the ability of CruiserMaxx to provide effective weevil control at the low seeding rates. We plan to repeat the demonstration test again next season, particularly focusing on the low seeding rate question. Mike Stout has some small plot replicated research that may also clarify the question of effectiveness of CruiserMaxx at low seeding rates as currently labeled.

This was certainly an interesting weevil season, and we learned a lot about weevil management, and just how difficult it can be to scout for adults and properly time insecticide applications.

We greatly appreciate the support and cooperation of all who are involved with the demonstration test. Please contact your local county agent, or me, if you have any questions about our observations this season.

Today we met with cooperators in St. Landry to look at the differences in stand emergence between the insecticide treated (Dermacor X-100, CruiserMaxx) and non-insecticide treated seed (fungicide only). This location is a joint effort between LSU AgCenter, Horizon Ag, DuPont and Syngenta. We are evaluating CL151 planted at a variety of seeding rates (#40, #55, #65, #70, #85, #100).

Dermacor X-100 treated seed to left of flag, untreated seed (fungicide only) to right of flag.

There was no noticeable difference between the Dermacor X-100 and CruiserMaxx treated seed. These were both planted at 65 lbs per acre.

Dermacor X-100 treated seed to the left of flag, CruiserMaxx treated seed to the right. No visible difference in stand at this time.

CruiserMaxx is applied at 3.3 fl oz/100 lbs seed, regardless of seeding rate. One of the objectives of this test is to confirm that CruiserMaxx provides the same level of rww control at low and high seeding rates. The seeding rates that we are evaluating include the following: 40, #55, #65, #70, #85, #100. At this point, there is no real visible difference in stand, except when comparing the high (#100) to low (#40).

CruiserMaxx treated CL151 - plants are just beginning to emerge from the ground. Planted at 40 lbs/acre.

CruiserMaxx treated CL151 seed planted at 100 lbs/acre.

We dug around in the untreated area for a little while to see if we could find colaspis larvae feeding on the roots. We did not find any today. We’ll return to take stand counts in about two weeks. These first few weeks of the test are critical for detecting colapsis damage, if it occurs.

Scouting for colaspis in untreated check area.

In the above picture, Dermacor X-100 treated seed is to the LEFT of the white flag. Untreated area is to the right of the flag.

Yesterday I visited with cooperators in Evangeline and St. Landry Parishes to discuss this years demonstration sites.

Meeting with (from left to right) Kent Guillory, Keith Fontenot and Kenneth LaHaye at the Evangeline Parish AgCenter office.

County Agents Keith Fontenot and Vince Deshotel and I met with the Morein family, Mr. Kenneth LaHaye and certified crop advisors, Kent Guillory and Dennis Fontenot. The topic of discussion was plans for the rice water weevil and colaspis demonstration sites. At Kenneth’s farm we will evaluate the following rww treatments: CruiserMaxx, Dermacor X-100, Pyrethroid and an untreated check. The pyrethroid treatment will be a shot of Karate with the last application of newpath before permanent flood. We will come in one week after permanent flood and scout for the presence of adult weevils. If present, we will make a second application of pyrethroid.

At the Morein farm we will be looking at colaspis management – if they show up in the field. An adjoining rice field suffered a reduction in plant stand due to colaspis infestation in the 2009 season. We worked with Mr. Dennis Fontenot to sweep the soybeans in a neighboring field. Dennis collected data on colaspis density in the beans and also sent us samples for species identification. This year, rice will be planted into the bean field we sampled for colaspis adults in 2009. We have arranged treatments of CruiserMaxx, Dermacor X-100 and some untreated areas in the rice field. I certainly hope we don’t have problems with colaspis again this season, but if we do, we should be able to learn more about colaspis management.

After we finalized our plans for the rww and colaspis demos in Evangeline Parish, Vince and I headed over to St. Landry Parish. I had not realized that St. Landry is such a large Parish. We stopped at a beautiful spot near a Bayou outside of Palmetto, LA that is farmed by Charlie Fontenot.

Crop Consultant Dean Reed and Charlie are fairly certain that they suffered about a 10% stand loss from colaspis feeding on rice seedlings in 2009. This resulted in re-planting on high ground in about 200 of the 2,000 acres of rice that Charlie grew last season. We decided to work with Micheal Fruge (Horizon Ag) on a seeding rate evaluation with some clearfield varieties. CruiserMaxx will be used as a the seed treatment at multiple seeding rates. This will give us a chance to evaluate activity at both standard and low seeding rates. We will also compare to Dermacor X-100 and an untreated check. I don’t know if the colaspis will show up in the rice, and hopefully they don’t turn out to be a problem this season.

Out of curiosity, we dug around in the soybean stubble at a high elevation on the farm to see if we could find any colaspis grubs. We found an abundance of earthworms and a few other critters in the soil, but no colaspis. It is possible that they are still down low in the soil profile. The soil temperature was 69F, and had very nice tilth. It was nice to give my hands a break from the keyboard for a change. This should be an interesting test location, and if nothing else it sure is beautiful scenery.